Friday, December 29, 2006

This is down to the line, folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!

I've got zombies on the mind.

Overdroid's lovely girlfriend presented me with a copy of Max Brook's "World War Z" for Christmas and I've found myself *ahem* devouring it.

Brooks tells the tale of a zombie apocalypse that engulfs the earth and almost wipes out humanity. The story is related as a series of post-war interviews Brooks conducted with the survivors for a report to the United Nations. It may sound cheesy but it's utterly engrossing. Probably partly because the zombies are really not that important to the story and partly because Brooks seems to have thought of everything when it comes to how such a fictional war would play out.

What I really love about the book is that it's seeped into my subconscious in all sorts of insidious ways. I'm finding myself analyzing what the best places in the Portland/ Metro area would be to defend against the zombie hordes. Brooks points out that zombies can't climb so tall buildings are a good idea as long as they're clear of infection and the stairwells have all been disabled.

There's a former federal treasury building only a couple of blocks from my office which has bars, bullet proof glass and steel shutters on the windows and 6" thick solid steel stores without handles that looked like a good place to hole-up. The problem is it's awfully close to downtown and that's where all the undead will concentrated.

Ultimately the safest place in Oregon in the even of a zombie uprising would probably be Timberline lodge. It's not as secure of a building but the zombies have a lot of trouble with cold weather and freeze. Just thought I'd share that important safety tip.